This comprehensive volume will spur and strengthen public debate over the role of teachers unions in education reform for years to come. Collective bargaining shapes the way public schools are organized, financed, staffed, and operated. Understanding collective bargaining in education and its impact on the day-to-day life of schools is critical to designing and implementing reforms that will successfully raise student achievement. But when it comes to public discussion of school reform, teachers unions are the proverbial elephant in the room. Despite the tremendous influence of teachers unions, there has not been a significant research-based book examining the role of collective bargaining in education in more than two decades. As a result, there is little basis for a constructive, empirically grounded dialogue about the role of teachers unions in education today. Following an introduction by the editors, the table of contents provides the following chapters: (1) The History of Collective Bargaining among Teachers (Richard D. Kahlenberg); (2) Union Membership in the United States: The Divergence between the Public and Private Sectors (Henry S. Farber); (3) Scapegoat, Albatross, or What?: The Status Quo in Teacher Collective Bargaining (Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly); (4) The Costs of Collective Bargaining Agreements and Related District Policies (Paul T. Hill); (5) The Effects of Collective Bargaining on Teacher Quality (Susan Moore Johnson and Morgaen L. Donaldson); (6) Are Teachers Unions Good for Students? (Dan Goldhaber); (7) Teachers Unions and No Child Left Behind (Paul Manna); (8) The Educational Value of Democratic Voice: A Defense of Collective Bargaining in American Education (Leo Casey); (9) The As-Yet-Unfulfilled Promise of Reform Bargaining: Forging a Better Match between the Labor Relations System We Have and the Education System We Want (Julia E. Koppich); and (10) Union Power and the Education of Children (Terry M. Moe). A conclusion (Jane Hannaway and Andrew J. Rotherham) is also included.